ODE FOR THE SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY OF SWINBURNE

He needs no crown of ours, whose golden heart

Poured out its wealth so freely in pure praise

Of others: him the imperishable bays

Crown, and on Sunium's height he sits apart:

He hears immortal greetings this great morn:

Fain would we bring, we also, all we may,

Some wayside flower of transitory bloom,

Frail tribute, only born

To greet the gladness of this April day

Then waste on death's dark wind its faint perfume.

Here on this April day the whole sweet Spring

Speaks thro’ his music only, or seems to speak.

And we that hear, with hearts uplift and weak,

What can we more than claim him for our king?

Here on this April day ( and many a time

Shall April come and find him singing still )

He is one with the world's great heart beyond the years,

One with the pulsing rhyme

Of tides that work some heavenly rhythmic will

And hold the secret of all human tears.

For he, the last of that immortal race

Whose music, like a robe of living light

Re-clothed each new-born age and made it bright

As with the glory of Love's transfiguring face,

Reddened earth's roses, kindled the deep blue

Of England's radiant, ever-singing sea,

Recalled the white Thalassian from the foam.

Woke the dim stars anew

And triumphed in the triumph of Liberty,

We claim him; but he hath not here his home.

Not here; round him to-day the clouds divide:

We know what faces thro’ that rose-flushed air

Now bend above him: Shelley's face is there,

And Hugo's, lit with more than kingly pride.

Replenished there with splendour, the blind eyes

Of Milton bend from heaven to meet his own,

Sappho is there, crowned with those queenlier flowers

Whose graft outgrew our skies,

His gift: Shakespeare leans earthward from his throne

With hands outstretched. He needs no crown of ours.